I've taken a bit of a blog hiatus the past few days due to taking care of a sick child. As many of you may know, taking care of a sick 3-year-old can be a full time job in itself without the added duties of taking care of a 5-year-old and completing the daily chores around the house. Needless to say, the entire family is pretty tired (except for Cora, who runs on hyperdrive most days). Writing the blog helps me to feel normal again, and normal is great.

The other night, before I became super-stressed and overwhelmingly worried about Adelle, I made a delightful chicken and rice dinner. The chicken was juicy and tender and the rice was flavorful. The best part about this dish is that it's made all in one skillet. Yeah, just one skillet for a great dinner.

1. Dry the chicken with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12-inch non stick skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Place chicken in skillet and cook on one side until browned, about 4 minutes. Flip the chicken and brown on the other side, about 3 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

2. Add the onion, carrots and 1/2 teaspoon salt to the skillet and cook until the begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme and cook an additional 30 seconds until the garlic is fragrant. Add the rice, stirring frequently, cooking until the edges are translucent, scraping up any brown bits that have accumulated. Add the wine and cook for 30 seconds, then add the chicken broth. Bring to a simmer. Place the chicken in the skillet, nestling it into the liquid mixture. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook until the chicken registers 160 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 15 minutes.

3. Remove the chicken from the skillet, making sure to scrape off any bits of rice, and place on a plate. Cover with foil. Add the peas to the skillet, stir to combine, cover and continue to cook until the rice is tender, about 10 minutes. Remove skillet from the heat, add the Parmesan and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

I'm having a hard time writing some good content for the blog tonight. Must be one of those days where nothing good comes to mind. I made some excellent homemade scalloped potatoes to bring to my in-law's for dinner tonight, yet nothing I have to say for the blog can tie into potatoes. So enough of me trying to fill in the blanks and let me just get on with the recipe already.

For those of you watching your caloric intake, this dish is considered low-fat and low-calorie, around 280 calories and 8 grams of fat per serving. The recipe serves 6, although I think those are generous helpings and could easily serve 8. I've taken this from an America's Test Kitchen cookbook but changed a couple of things here and there. Enjoy!

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Heat oil in a large dutch oven, add onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and thyme and cook for 30 seconds.

2. Add the milk, bay leaves and potatoes. Bring to a simmer. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the potatoes are just tender but not all the way done, about 7-10 minutes.

3. Discard the bay leaves. In a small bowl, whisk the corn starch and water together, then add to the potatoes. Bring to a simmer. Move the pot off the heat and add the cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and 1 teaspoon salt. Transfer the mixture to an 8x8 baking dish.

4. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan cheese, cover with foil and bake until bubbly, about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes until cheese is browned. Let it cool 10 minutes before serving.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home with a stay-at-home mom who kept the house super clean and cooked good homemade meals. One of my great memories of childhood is coming home from school to my mother drying homemade egg noodles on the kitchen table. There were hundreds of still-doughy noodles laid out on kitchen towels, and I'd always pop one or two in my mouth when my mother wasn't looking. She probably knew what I was doing, but it felt better to be sneaking around. My mother may have cooked a lot (ham and beans, cubed steak, pot roast, pork chops, lasagna, etc), but there's one thing she never made from scratch: tomato pasta sauce. Until I reached adulthood, I didn't even know normal people like you and me could make pasta sauce at home; I thought that was something you could only learn from your grandmother -- the kind that hailed straight from Italy. And my lineage doesn't go that far south in Europe. One day I was complaining to my mother-in-law that I was having trouble finding plain marinara sauce, something that tasted good over tortellini without adding ground beef like I did for spaghetti (regular jarred spaghetti sauce tasted too acidic, too tomato-y). Just like that, she pulled out a recipe for marinara sauce. How could this be? Tomato sauce had been a mystery to me, a jarred wonder, an untouchable blend of tomatoes and herbs. Wait a minute: it's just a blend of tomatoes and herbs?? The realization sunk in deep, and I knew I had been a complete idiot, but Of course, by now I was feeling a little silly to think that I couldn't make tomato sauce at home, but we'll just leave the rest of my naivety out of this story to save me from added embarrassment. So this is the recipe my mother-in-law gave to me, although I've added a tiny bit of sugar and a bit more salt. Her recipe also specified fresh basil, but all I had was dried. This sauce tastes great alone on pasta or chicken Parmesan or add some ground beef for a fabulous spaghetti sauce. I was pleasantly surprised with the finished product: it looked and tasted like a fine sauce from an Italian restaurant all from my kitchen in less than half an hour. You can also make a double batch, one for now and one for the freezer.

1. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook onion until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic and tomato paste and cook 1 minute longer, until garlic is fragrant and tomato paste begins to brown.

2. Pour canned tomatoes, basil, salt and sugar into saucepan. With the back of a spoon, break tomatoes up into small pieces. Bring to a low simmer. Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer until thickened, about 15-20 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

My family and I started to make the switch to whole foods about 4 or 5 months ago. We already ate decently well, fresh fruits and vegetables and whatnot. So our major change was adding even more fresh produce, eliminating processed foods (like cream soups for recipes, canned or jarred spaghetti sauces, ready-made pizza sauce, frozen pizzas, store-bought bread, etc), and buying organic when possible. To my surprise, I have been able to eliminate my medication for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) which has plagued me with severe stomach pains for nearly 10 years. I even had to have an upper endoscopy procedure in my mid 20's due to prolonged use of acid-blocking medication -- that's just not right.So why the sudden cure now? Is it because I'm eating less chemicals and more fresh vegetables? Well, probably -- at least, that's the only thing I've changed in my lifestyle, so it makes sense. Even when I was on the medicine, I'd sometimes get sharp stomach pains, but now as long as I eat well, my stomach feels great. When I think back to what I was putting inside my body, it's no wonder it was hurting (even though we didn't even eat that bad compared to a majority of America).So since this last weekend, I haven't been eating as many fresh vegetables with my meals or as a snack. I'm not sure why: I guess it was just a busy weekend and I either ate quickly or away from home without the option of carrots or a salad. And boy, I am feeling it today. I'm still amazed at how the body becomes used to healthful food and then almost rejects anything else. It's not even that what I ate was not healthy, it just wasn't a fresh vegetable. Today after my lunch, I ate the equivalent of 4 medium to large carrots with a couple tablespoons of roasted red pepper hummus. I'm drinking my water and waiting for relief. Carrots and peppers and broccoli have become my new medicine instead of the generic Prevacid I was taking, and I thought I'd never get off that medication!

On a different note, a friend of mine on Facebook jokingly asked if I was going to follow-up my last recipe for roasted chicken with another recipe to help use up all of that extra chicken. So, Chris, this is for you.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2.. In a medium bowl, place shredded, 1/2 cup enchilada sauce, feta cheese, green chiles and cilantro. Stir to combine. If the ingredients are all cold (such as leftover chicken), microwave for about 45 seconds to warm chicken mixture.

3. On the baking sheet, place six corn tortillas on the parchment paper and spray both sides with vegetable oil spray. Place in oven for 2 minutes until softened. Remove from oven.

4. Working quickly, spoon 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture into each tortilla. Tightly roll up and place seam side down in a 9x13 baking dish. Do this for remaining 11 tortillas. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees.

5. Pour remaining cup of enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheddar. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 15-20 minutes until heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 3-5 minutes until cheese is melted. Serve with lime wedges.

A quick update on the rabbit situation (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read earlier post entitled "Kill the Wabbit" -- which, by the way, is something I could not really do):After some quick research, I learned a few solutions to keep rabbits away from the strawberry plants such as wire fencing and an owl decoy. Another couple of sites mentioned sprinkling human hair around the garden; the scent of a human is supposed to keep the rabbits away. We don't have time to make a fence at the moment since James has been working a lot of overtime the past couple of months, and I'm afraid an owl decoy will scare any animals from entering our yard, like the birds and a particular cat that catches field mice at the very back of our yard (keeps those mice from finding our shed... or the house). But luckily, James needed a haircut. And thankfully, I cut James' hair at home with some electric trimmers (I can do three styles: short, shorter and bald) so I didn't have the awkward embarrassment of asking a hair stylist at a salon to sweep the hair up into a bag so I could use it in the garden.There wasn't a lot of hair, maybe half a cup, but I sprinkled it all around the strawberry plants 2 days ago. So far, no more rabbits have eaten the precious leaves and flowers off the injured bushes.Could this be the solution?? It almost seems too easy and to good to be true. But I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I roasted a whole chicken in a slow cooker the other day which turned out surprisingly well. I had my doubts, mainly because my slow cooker is a little old and doesn't seem to heat up as well as it should. For instance, my "high" setting is what the recipe books consider "low." I guess that makes my "low" setting REALLY low. Anyway, the chicken tasted wonderful and the finishing sauce was quite tasty. Oh, and despite the fact I had to saute a few things in the skillet beforehand, the recipe was incredibly easy. Let's face it: there's nothing better than putting a meal in the slow cooker earlier in the day, and then enjoying a stress-free dinner later.

1. In a 12-inch skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat until just simmering. Add onions, tomato paste and garlic and cook until softened and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Add flour, stir and cook for 1 minute longer. Whisk in chicken broth. Add thyme. Pour into the bottom of a slow cooker.

2. Salt and pepper the chicken. Place the chicken breast-side down and nestle it into the onion mixture. Cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. Thighs should measure 170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.

3. Place chicken on a plate or large cutting board and tent loosely with foil. Let it rest for 20 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, let braising liquid settle. Skim fat off the top with a large spoon. Remove the garlic cloves and most of the onions with a slotted spoon. Salt and pepper sauce to taste. Serve chicken with sauce.

I walked out to my back garden today to visit the strawberry plants, my daily round to check the status of those beautiful little white flowers that will eventually turn into lovely red fruit. I've been anticipating a strawberry crop for over a year now since I first planted them last spring. There are ten bushy plants out there... at least there were yesterday. But today I walked out there and three of the plants were darn near decimated. The leaves and flowers had been picked right off the tip of their stems. I just stood there and stared at the bare plants in disbelief and I probably had a ridiculous look on my face: mouth gaping open, eyes wide in curiosity, eyebrows arched and my arms dangling clumsily at my sides -- what happened to the leaves and the flowers?? Then it came to me -- it was a "wascally wabbit." My in-laws have complained about rabbits in their garden for the past few years and have gone so far as to put up a tight wire fence along the entire perimeter at the base of their wooden fence to prevent the critters from getting inside. To her surprise, my mother-in-law found that a rabbit had actually chewed through the wood the other day to get inside their yard. I used to try and remind her how cute rabbits can be and not to be so hard on them. But after seeing the devastation to my beloved strawberry plants caused by the gentle nibbling of a rabbit, I can't help but think of ways to get rid of the furry critters.Goodbye Amber, Hello Mr. McGregor. For now, I'm not sure what our solution will be. I just hope the rabbit got its fill for a while before he comes back and eats the rest of my crop. I'd also like to tell any rabbits who want to eat forbidden fruit out of my yard to please come knock on my door and I'd be more than happy to give you a large helping of carrots, lettuce, cilantro and parsley from my refrigerator -- just in case any of them read this blog.

In the meantime, here's a great recipe for salmon. It has nothing to do with strawberries or rabbits, but it's quick and delicious and oh, so healthy.

1. Pat the salmon dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet for medium high heat until it just starts to smoke.

2. Lay the salmon in the skillet and cook until very well browned (a deep amber color is best). Flip the salmon over and continue to cook until the salmon registers 140 degrees (125 degrees if you like it more rare and you trust the quality of your fish) on an instant read thermometer, about 5 minutes. Transfer the salmon to a plate and tent with foil.

3. Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel and return to medium heat. Whisk the orange juice, balsamic vinegar, honey, white vinegar, red pepper flakes and rosemary in a small bowl. Pour into the skillet and simmer for about 5 minutes. The glaze will thicken and become syrupy and will have reduced down to about 1/4 of a cup.

4. Remove the rosemary sprig and season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the glaze over the salmon and serve.

Do you know how it feels when you walk into a new clothing store for the first time and it ends up being one of the best stores you've ever visited? The clothes are exactly your style, everything fits your body just right, and the prices are not too expensive and there's a big sale on everything. I imagine my glee being equal to that of a gold miner striking his pick axe into a giant rock of precious metal.Well, I had an experience just like this today -- except instead of finding a wonderful clothing store, I found a local grocery store with a wonderful nature/organic section. The fresh organic produce spanned 15-feet long in two layers: lettuce, carrots, leeks, green onions, yellow and red bell peppers, beets, broccoli, etc. Next to that was a large display of organic apples in several different varieties, navel oranges, avocados, lemons and limes. I was so excited that I was ticked off at myself for forgetting my cell phone at home -- I needed to call my mother-in-law that very second to let her know of the gems that lay before me!I knew she would appreciate them as much as me.After wandering through the produce section, I found my way to the rest of the natural/organic aisles of the store. Yes, aisles - plural! The shelves were full of all sorts of goodies: organic pastas, canned tomatoes, crackers, granola bars, chips, applesauce, juices, and cereal. Our favorite cereal was on sale so that made the visit even that much better. How could I have not known this grocery store, just a 10-15 minute drive away from my house, was providing lovely, fresh organic groceries? What a great discovery!So the moral of this story is: make sure you check around your local area for natural/organic groceries that you may not have known about. Each time you purchase a natural or organic item, you're not just feeding your family healthier, higher-quality foods, you're telling your grocer that natural/organic items matter to you and your family. And let's face it, if the grocery stores can make money selling organic produce, they'll provide more and more of the good stuff.As for me, I'll be visiting my new find again the very near future.